Chelsea FC lender Ares wants to bowl over Oval Hundred franchise

One of the world’s biggest financial investors has waded into the auction of English cricket’s Hundred competition, amid signs that the process will generate a bigger-than-expected windfall for the sport.

Sky News has learnt that Ares Management, which has lent substantial sums to Chelsea Football Club, the McLaren Formula One team and Rugby Australia, has submitted an offer for a sizeable stake in the Oval Invincibles franchise.

Ares, which has more than $460bn (£355bn) of assets under management, is a leading player in global alternative investments and has an increasingly prolific presence in the international sports arena.

Although many of its other sports deals have involved it providing debt financing, its bid for a stake in the Oval Invincibles is an equity-led proposal, according to people close to the Hundred process.

Sources told Sky News that the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) and its advisers at Raine Group have this week whittled down the original list of roughly 100 offers to “several dozen”.

It was unclear on Friday whether Ares was bidding in partnership with someone, how large a stake in the London-based franchise it was trying to buy, and whether it had made it through to the next phase of the process.

Many of the proposals involve the same bidders submitting an interest in more than one Hundred franchise.

One insider said that India’s Ambani family, one of the world’s richest business dynasties, had indicated interest in “the majority” of the eight teams.

Other bidders said to be interested include Jonathan Goldstein, the businessman who owns the Prezzo casual dining chain, who is also courting one of the London franchises.

The Glazer family, who continue to own a major stake in Manchester United FC, and RedBird Capital are also reported to have shown interest.

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The franchise are in aggregate understood to have been valued at more than £600m in the first round of the process, with the highest bid reported to have been an offer valuing the Lords-based London Spirit outfit at £140m.

That offer was reported by The Daily Telegraph to have come from Sanjiv Goenka, an Indian billionaire who owns the Indian Premier League’s Lucknow Super Giants.

Under the ECB’s blueprint for the Hundred – with significant broader implications for the wider future of the game in England – the governing body’s 49% stake in each of the eight franchises is to be sold, with the proceeds distributed across the recreational game, the 18 first-class counties and the MCC, which owns Lords.

The eight host venues, which play home to teams including the Northern Superchargers, Manchester Originals and Southern Brave, are to be handed control of the remaining 51% stakes in their franchise, which they can choose to retain, or sell in part or in whole.

A bigger-than-expected windfall from the process could offer a financial lifeline to a number of cash-strapped counties, with part of the proceeds likely to be used to pay down expensive debt.

Concerns have been raised, however, that windfalls from the Hundred auction will not deliver a meaningful improvement in counties’ long-term financial sustainability.

Lord King, the former Bank of England governor who recently became the MCC president, recently told Mike Atherton, the former England captain, that there were significant risks associated with the use of proceeds.

“This is a one-off sale,” he said in an interview with The Times.

“You can’t sell the Hundred twice. They are selling the family silver.

“You can’t use that money to prop up a structure of a domestic game that is not financially viable.”

The outcome of the auction, which will become clear in the coming months, is also likely to intensify other searching questions about the future of cricket, as the Test format of the game struggles for international commercial relevance against shorter-length competition.